The Style That Would Not Die

There is a well-worn narrative trope that even the novel, despite its multifarious forms and affinity for innovation, seems unable to shake: “boy meets girl.” Let’s examine four recent tellings of this story, all of them quite popular. In the first version a pair meets, but their attempts to be together and love each other are frustrated by class difference, familial histories of abuse, and attachment disorders. The plot of this novel, let us call it story one, runs on question